


Dying is Easy (Living is Harder)

by Willowe



Series: automaton!AU [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Gen, Nightmares, automaton Hamilton, slight body horror of the automaton variety, vague mentions of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowe/pseuds/Willowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In the all the time I have known you," Laurens finally says. "I have not been able to figure out if you wish that you were more human, or simply a better automaton." </p><p>When it becomes clear that Laurens is not going to expand on that statement, Alexander forces himself to respond. "Sometimes, my dear Laurens, I am not sure myself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We're deviating from the musical a little now! This is going to be heavily focused on some of the details of Hamilton being an automaton, and his friendship with John Laurens. It takes place between "Wrote My Way to Revolution" and "Fundamental Truths".
> 
> The body horror is pretty minor, and involves some details about Alexander's functions and design. I've included some more detailed (but spoilery) notes at the end, so please read those first if you think this may bother you.
> 
> (Also, if you're confused about the whale oil comments in this, from the notes on "Ev'ry Burden, Ev'ry Disadvantage": _Basically Hamilton is made of gears and cogs, with an internal fire that feeds on the whale oil to produce heat to make his body move correctly._ )

Alexander doesn’t know how much of the conversation he missed, but when he starts paying attention again he finds that, for some reason, Laurens is bandaging Alexander’s hand and talking about turtles.

“…so then the female of the soft-shell turtles-” Laurens cuts off suddenly as Alexander catches his eye, freezing completely as if afraid of making any sudden movement. But why?

“Do go on. I wish to hear more about these turtles,” Alexander says, his voice surprisingly hoarse though he is not sure why.

He sees Laurens swallow harshly, and thinks he feels his friend’s hand shake where it’s still holding his own. But he must be mistaken. Surely Laurens couldn’t have a chill, not in the middle of summer?

He’s just about to ask what’s going on when Laurens throws him for a loop by saying, “Are you finally back with us, then?”

“What?” Alexander asks, dumbly. There’s a buzzing in his head, as if someone opened his skull and poured a thousand live bees into the cavity. His limbs feel heavy, uncooperative in the way they get after he takes a dose of his whale oil… except he hasn’t had any, as far as he remembers.

But then again, he’s not remembering much of anything at the moment.

What on earth happened?

As if answering his thoughts, Laurens says, “You’ve been working for the last week straight, do you remember that?”

Alexander remembers a sea of endless letters, dozens of missives run between Washington and the other generals, reports to sift through and condense into manageable pieces of information. “I remember the work…” he says slowly. “Has it truly been a week?”

“It’s been that long since you returned to our tent at night, and it has been at least two days since I have set eyes upon you at all,” Laurens says. Alexander thinks he hears his friend’s voice shake but no, surely that damned buzzing must be interfering with his hearing.

“And something happened?” Alexander prompts, knowing that there must be more to the story than just that.

Laurens laughs, but there is little mirth in his voice when he says, “You very nearly ran yourself into the ground, Hamilton. I came to convince you to take some rest, and found you barely responsive, slumped over your work like you were already dead. Thank god I had the foresight to bring your oil with me, and was able to force some down your throat…”

“I have no recollection of any of that,” Alexander murmurs, almost to himself. He can’t even be sure if he truly remembers the specifics of the writing he was doing; there’s been so much work, so much writing, that even when he is fully aware of his surroundings it still seems like a blur in his mind. But for him to have collapsed at his desk… Alexander is filled with a deep shame. He should be better than that. He _needs_ to be better than that.

After all, what use to anyone is an automaton that collapses under the strain of the work?

“I’m not surprised,” Laurens says, pulling Alexander out of his thoughts. “You were unresponsive for nearly an hour. I was starting to think…” His voice trails off, and Alexander knows he’s not imagining the quaver in Laurens’ voice this time.

“Well,” Laurens continues, as if his voice isn’t still shaking with every word he says. “At least you are awake now, and thank God for that.”

Alexander doesn’t think God has much to do with automatons like himself, but he is not going to say as much to his friend. Certainly not when he has more pressing concerns on his mind, like filling in the rest of the gaps in his knowledge of what transpired earlier that evening. He has questions that he knows Laurens won’t answer, not when his friend still sounds so scared of what almost happened- questions about the work he was completing, the writing he still has to finish, the tasks Washington assigned that he can’t remember if he carried out or not.

But there are other things he can ask that he is fairly certain won’t upset his friend further, and he goes with what he thinks will be the most innocuous query. “Why were you talking about turtles?”

Laurens chuckles; there’s a note of true amusement in his laugh now, and Alexander finds himself relaxing ever so slightly at the sound. “I did a small study of soft-shelled turtles when I was younger, when I did some sketches for a scientific publication,” he explains. “Truthfully, I thought having something to focus on might bring you back to your senses sooner, so when I ran out of other topics of speak about that was the first thing to come to mind. And it provided a suitable distraction from… well…”

He is still holding Alexander's hand and he lifts it now, motioning to the bandage that he has yet to tie off. Laurens moves to do that now, but Alexander reaches out and stops him. “Wait. Why are you bandaging my hand?” he asks, trying to grab the edge of the bandage so he can pull it back and see what’s underneath.

“Alexander, no,” Laurens says, trying to stop Alexander from pulling the bandages away. “You do not want to look at your hand, you somehow sliced it open and…”

Laurens looks almost green around the edges, and Alexander thinks he knows what happened. Laurens has no hope of holding onto Alexander’s hand when he tugs it away, and this time he doesn’t even try to stop Alexander from unwrapping the bandage and pulling it back.

Like Alexander suspected, there is a large gash on the back of his hand, not very deep but his skin is so thin that it’s still enough to expose some of the gears underneath the surface. His hand spasms suddenly and he watches as the cogs click and move with the motion. It’s not an unfamiliar sight to him, but it is one that he does not get to see very often.

Next to him, he hears Laurens gag and he looks up to see his friend’s face gone pale at the sight of Alexander’s hand. “How does that not sicken you?” he asks, not quite looking down at the open wound but motioning in that general direction instead. “I could barely bring myself to bandage it, but I feared leaving it exposed in case of infection…”

“I cannot get an infection,” Alexander interrupts. He’s still studying his hand carefully, taking this opportunity to check for anything in the gears that might need attending to. “Nothing in my body is actually alive, and I believe my skin has been coated with some agent to protect against decay.”

“How do you know?” Laurens asks.

“Because have sustained similar wounds before, and they all healed without incident,” Alexander tells him. “The raw edges of the wound will close together, until one piece of pigskin overlaps the other to form a smooth surface. Like the scales on a pinecone before it opens, each one lying flat on top of the other to create a solid casing. It will simply become one more near-invisible access point to the outermost layer of my internal mechanisms.”

“Another access point?” Laurens asks warily, his confusion and curiosity clearly warring with his desire to end this conversation as quickly as possible.

Rather than answering, Alexander runs his uninjured hand up along his opposite arm, until he finds the almost undetectable edge of skin that he’s looking for. He doesn’t hesitate in peeling it back, exposing the gears in his elbow that he frequently has to oil to prevent them from giving him too much difficultly.

Laurens takes one look at Alexander’s arm and retches, gagging and dry-heaving for a few long moments.

Alexander looks down at his arm, not quite understanding his friend’s distress. It’s a far less gruesome sight than the injuries that humans sustain. There’s no blood or gore, just clean gears and a flap of skin that easily smooths back into place without any indication that it was ever moved. Still, it’s clear that Laurens does not appreciate the sight and he carefully settles his skin back down so the mechanisms in his elbow are no longer exposed.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Laurens asks, once he regains control of his stomach. “Seeing your internal workings like that? How does that not make you uneasy?”

Alexander shrugs. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I frequently have to move pieces of skin so I can oil creaking joints. There’s even a particular piece of skin on my chest that I can lift up to access a hidden cavity. It’s where I keep my legal paperwork so I always have it on hand, among other things.”

Laurens still looks fairly queasy, but that doesn’t stop him from asking, “How has this never come up before? You always insisted that you do not know how you were made, and yet if you can easily and painlessly access your insides…”

“I cannot access everything,” Alexander corrects. “Only the outermost layer. Humans have layers of skin and muscles and tendons overtop of their bones, and I am the same. I have pigskin overtop the finest of gears, and underneath that there are more cogs and joints and mechanisms that I cannot see. The deepest parts of my body, the innermost cavities and gears, that fire inside me that makes all my movements possible- none of that is within my reach. I can pour oil on creaky gears to lubricate them, but if something were to catastrophically fail I would not even know how to begin to repair it.”

“All the more reason to properly take care of yourself,” Laurens says firmly, turning the conversation to a more familiar subject. This is not the first time he has chastised Alexander for forgetting to look out for himself, and although it irks the automaton he has grudgingly accepted that it will not be the last time. “If I had not sought you out when I did…”

Laurens’ voice is shaking again and Alexander wants to reach out and comfort him, but moving his arm seems like an impossible feat at the moment. It seems like even just his earlier explanations and the brief conversation he had with his friend were enough to deplete what little energy Laurens’ ministrations had returned to him.

He hates being faced with the limitations of his own body like this. He needs to get back to work, there are too many things that need his attention for him to sit around idle like this. He eyes the bottle of whale oil, still sitting uncapped on the opposite side of the desk, and thinks that if he took a large enough dose he could work through the lethargy it brings on until he returned to his usual energy levels.

But when he tries to move his arm to reach for the bottle of whale oil his limb spasms. It doesn’t want to cooperate with him, refusing to move the way he needs it to. He can’t remember the last time he was this low on energy and he glares down at his hand, silently furious at it for betraying him. Silent only so he does not cause Laurens any more concern… a goal which, unfortunately, will be in vain once Laurens actually needs him to move.

“Hamilton? _Alexander!_ ”

Alexander doesn’t realize how lost in his thoughts he had become until he hears his friend shout his name. He looks up at Laurens, sees the fear and worry in his eyes, but it takes far longer than it should for his brain to process what exactly that means and to come up with the words to comfort his friend. “My apologies, my dear Laurens. I was just…”

He pauses to try to find the right word that would minimize the lie he needs to tell, but his mind draws a blank and he doesn’t finish his sentence at all.

Laurens sighs and stands up. “Come on, Hamilton. Let’s return to the tent. You need your rest, even if you don’t think that you do.”

Alexander is still half-convinced that he can, somehow, find the energy to keep working through the night. But when he tries to stand and instead half-collapses, only remaining upright because he just barely manages to catch himself on the edge of the table, and he knows that continuing his work at this point is a wishful thought.

“Alexander!” Laurens moves quickly to help support Alexander- a no small feat, given that he has to support the weight of the automaton’s pure-metal skeleton. “Are you alright? What do you need?”

“The oil,” Alexander says immediately. “I need- I need more whale oil.”

It takes some careful maneuvering, but Laurens manages to grab the bottle without letting go of Alexander. When Alexander’s hand refuses to close around it Laurens helps guide it to his mouth so the automaton can take a long swallow. It’s been so long since his reserves have been this low that Alexander cannot remember for sure how much oil he needs to drink or what the effects will be. He normally has no more than twenty minutes before he loses consciousness- not a true sleep but rather several hours of unawareness as his systems reset and readjust.

Now, Alexander does not even know if he’ll last the five minutes it would take to walk back to his tent. With Laurens helping to support him they are able to slowly make their way across camp, but Alexander’s legs keep locking up suddenly and stopping their forward progress, or else giving out entirely and forcing Laurens to shoulder more of his weight. Alexander can already feel himself start to slip in and out of awareness when they reach the tent and Laurens helps lower him onto his bedroll.

“Don’t worry about me,” Alexander tries to assure his friend. “I will be fine in the morning.”

“Just don’t die on me tonight, Hamilton, do you hear me?” Laurens retorts as he tugs a blanket up over Alexander.

Alexander does not point out that, if his body was truly on the verge of a catastrophic failure, he would hardly know what to do to prevent that. He has no doubt that Laurens’ earlier ministrations only succeeded through pure luck and fortunate timing, and he is not sure if such a miracle would have been possible if attempted by someone else.

Still, he is equally sure that he will not die tonight. There is too much work yet to complete, and no glory to be found in a quiet death far from the battlefield. Alexander has succeeded so far by pushing his body as far as it can go, and keeping it alive by sheer determination and his own stubborn will. And he’ll be damned if he lets his body give out on him now.

But his last thought, as his vision goes dark and his hearing grows muffled and his awareness slowly starts to slip away for the next several hours, is that he is fortunate to have his friend by his side. For as lucky as his earlier recovery was, if his will fails him tonight he has no doubt that the only person in the world with the stubbornness and sheer luck to pull off a second miracle is his dear Laurens.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Nightmares (including descriptions of Alexander being killed in dreams), very brief and subtle references to suicidal thoughts, unspecific death threats

John Laurens wakes up in an empty tent with a choked-off scream dying in his throat.

Hamilton’s absence is nothing noteworthy, not even at this early hour, but with his nightmare fresh in his mind John immediately assumes the worst. He surely would have woken up if there had been a struggle inside their tent and a cursory glance outside shows no sign of a scuffle there either, but he still can’t shake the memory of seeing broken cogs scattered around the camp in his dream.

The nightmares are nothing new; they started back when he was still in New York, not long after the first time their group of friends truly saw battle together. John is used to having terrifying nightmares where he sees his friends die on the battlefield, never able to reach them no matter how hard he fights to reach their side. But nightmares like that are easier to ignore and push aside in the light of day, so generic in their horror as to be barely disturbing once he is awake.

The nightmares about Hamilton have always been harder to shake off. Visions of bloody cogs and gears strewn around camp (though John knows that there is not a single drop of blood in the automaton’s body) have been the default for so long that these new dreams leave him nearly sick to his stomach. He’s lost count of the number of times he has fallen asleep, only to dream of finding Hamilton dead at his desk in Washington’s headquarters, pen still in hand and his last sentence unfinished on the page before him.

Or, worse yet, the horrific scenes of Hamilton being dragged from his bed and ripped apart, skin peeled back like Hamilton showed him only a scant week earlier- only in his dreams, the mob rips it clean off his metal frame and tears out handfuls of gears and cogs until Alexander is utterly destroyed.

The screams of his friend always echo in his ears long after he wakes up from those dreams.

John knows that if he were to go to Washington’s headquarters he would find Hamilton already hard at work, no worse for the wear despite his near-brush with death not too long ago. Hamilton’s recovery seems, on the surface, to be fairly remarkable, but it would not surprise John if his friend was simply hiding any lingering problems or exhaustion from him. The thought of Alexander pushing himself this hard when he is not fully recovered makes John more furious than words can describe, even as it fills him with a near-paralyzing fear at the thought of losing Hamilton due to the automaton’s own stupidity.

With his nightmare still lingering fresh in his mind John wants to find his friend, browbeat him until he agrees to return to the tent and take a break, if only for an hour or so. Away from his work and their fellow soldiers, and safely in John’s eyesight where he can make sure the automaton is not pushing himself to the brink of death again.

But he knows that such actions would be met with anger and resistance from Alexander. The best he can hope for is that his friend is still in Washington’s headquarters, rather than out running messages for the General, by the time John dresses and makes his way over there himself. If he slips one of Hamilton’s bottles of whale oil in his pocket as he leaves the tent, just in case… Well, it certainly paid off the last time, didn’t it?

The camp is still more-or-less quiet when John finally steps outside his tent. Between his duties as an aide-de-camp and sharing quarters with an automaton that never sleeps John has seen the camp of the Continental Army in varying states of wakefulness and busyness, from the late hours of the night when it feels like he is the only soul still awake to the bustle of midday with soldiers busy at drills.

Hamilton, he knows, prefers to move about at night, when there are fewer distractions from his work. But Laurens much prefers early mornings like this, when the sun is starting to peek over the tops of the trees and the camp is just starting to come to life around him.

If Laurens dislikes the stillness of night for the nightmares it inevitably brings, he appreciates that the calm, quiet mornings give him a chance to pull himself back together before fully facing the day.

So it would be just his luck, on a morning like this where he’s still on high-alert from watching his friend be torn apart in his dreams, that that near-idyllic peace would be shattered.

“…would avoid headquarters, if I were you. That damned automaton is already at work.”

The soldier spits out _automaton_ like it is a dirty word, an insult and a slur and something that Hamilton should be ashamed of being. It’s nothing that John hasn’t heard before a thousand times over but it still makes his blood boil with anger, made worse by the still-lingering fear from his earlier nightmare. He knows that they won’t actually try to harm Hamilton- everyone in camp knows that he has Washington’s implicit protection, now that he is an aide- but it’s hard to remain calm and rational when the other soldier groans and says, “Why hasn’t someone gotten rid of that thing yet, anyway?”

_Gotten rid of that thing_. As if Hamilton was nothing more than some feral stray that needed to be killed before it caused even more trouble. As if Hamilton wasn’t alive, as if he couldn’t think and feel, as if killing a creation of metal and gears didn’t truly count as murder at all. These men would look down at a pile of bloody cogs and see broken pieces of a machine, and not spare one thought for the man they destroyed.

( _There would be no blood, though_ , John reminds himself, but that distinction between his nightmares and what reality would be like does not provide any comfort.)

The first soldier laughs- actually _laughs_ \- and says, “Well, we could always do it ourselves. Wouldn’t be hard now, would it?”

_Wouldn’t be hard_ \- to peel his skin back, tear out the gears that give Alexander movement. _Wouldn’t be hard now_ , not when the automaton must still be weak from his near-death only a week past! _Wouldn’t be hard_ \- as if they were actually going to do it, as if they were actually making plans…

John is moving before he even consciously realizes what he is doing, fear and rage both controlling his actions as he rounds the corner to confront the men who are speaking. They’re clearly startled by his sudden appearance. Good. Let them be on edge.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation,” he says, as politely as he can manage- which is barely even polite at all, with his voice shaking and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Care to repeat your words?”

One of the men looks uneasy but the other clearly has a temper to match John’s and he says, “Don’t see what business it is of yours.”

“Perhaps you haven’t heard, but Alexander Hamilton is my friend, and I will not-”

“Oh, we’ve heard alright,” the man interrupts. “And we don’t hardly care. If you want to associate with a soulless abomination like that, you’d best get used to the rest of us speaking the truth.”

There are words that John should say, eloquent sentences half-formed in his mind defending Alexander and refuting this man’s claims to speak “the truth”. But for all the time John spends writing abolitionist essays and pleas for aid for the revolution, it is Hamilton, not him, whose first reaction is always to find the right words for any situation.

John knows he’s past the point of words when he looks at this soldier speaking of false-truths, and only sees him standing over Alexander’s mangled mechanical body.

The first punch catches the soldier by surprise, knocking him to the ground. His lip is split open and his fingers come away bloody when he wipes at the cut. John only has a second of smugness at the sight before the soldier’s companion moves, finally spurred to action by the temporary defeat of his friend. He swings wildly at John, obviously unused to brawling; John easily dodges the attempted attack and uses the man’s own momentum to send him sprawling down with no more damage than a few bruises and wounded pride.

“What is the meaning of this?”

All three men immediately freeze at the stern question, but John relaxes slightly a moment later when he finally processes just who that voice belongs to. If any Major General had to interrupt this fight, he is grateful beyond words that it is Lafayette who found them first.

“He started it, sir,” the man with the bloodied lip says immediately, pointing to John. “Threw the first punch, he did.”

“Oh?” Lafayette raises an eyebrow and turns to John. He’s familiar with John’s tendency to get into fights- and has, in fact, gotten into several alongside him- but here in camp he is their commanding officer and John can’t stop the nervous rolling of his stomach. “Is this true?”

“They threatened Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s life, sir,” John explains. He sees Lafayette try to smother a grin at John calling him _sir_ , always amused when his friends use the title even in situations when it’s required, and he relaxes a fraction more. This was going to be fine.

“We absolutely did not!” the first soldier tries to protest.

“You said, and I quote, _Why hasn’t anyone tried to get rid of that thing yet?_ ” John snaps. “To which your friend replied that you could always just do it yourselves.”

All traces of humor immediately vanish from Lafayette’s face and he draws himself up even taller; he towers over John, and to the two soldiers still on the ground he must look positively menacing. “Death threats against a fellow soldier are not something I can ignore,” he says, his voice dropping to nearly a growl. It loses some of its effect with the thick French accent, but it’s still enough to get the color draining from the soldiers’ faces.

“You- you can’t prove that we said anything,” the second soldier says, but the fear in his eyes is obvious enough.

“ _Non_. I cannot,” Lafayette agrees. “Which is why I am not bringing this to the attention of General Washington- this time." The implied threat of what should happen if they run their mouths again is clear to everyone. "You two are dismissed. But Lieutenant Colonel Laurens, I would have a word with you.”

The two soldiers scramble to their feet and hurry away, throwing departing glares at Laurens as they brush past him.

Lafayette waits until they are well out of earshot before sighing and saying, “You will have to watch your back for some time, _mon ami_. You and Hamilton both.”

John shrugs, and absentmindedly flexes out his hand. His knuckles aren’t too bruised this time, which he is willing to count as a small victory. “We are used to watching our backs. We will be fine.”

“Yes, but normally you do not start fights like this in camp,” Lafayette points out. “Threats are made against Hamilton frequently, and are never carried out. Why was this any different?”

“It wasn’t.” John forces a smile. “Just got carried away, that’s all.”

But Lafayette frowns and John knows that his friend is not buying the excuse. “You are hot-headed, but not like this. If something else happened…”

“Nothing happened.” John could bear the embarrassment of having to explain his nightmares to someone else, but he will not share Alexander’s secrets. Not even with a mutual friend like Lafayette.

“ _Mon ami,_ even I know something is not right,” Lafayette says gently. “Please. Let me help you.”

And God help him, but John can feel his will weakening. The stress from months of nightmares and the lingering horror from Alexander’s near-death only a week past is too much for him to bear silently in face of such a compassionate offer.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” he admits softly, with no small amount of shame.

“Every soldier has nightmares,” Lafayette tells him. “Even myself. Even the General, I can promise you that.”

John shakes his head. “Not like this. Not about…”

How can he explain it? How can he describe that heart-stopping fear of finding Alexander unconscious at his desk, of that hour where he did not know if his friend would ever wake up again? How can he explain seeing Hamilton peel back his own skin so nonchalantly, and then going to sleep and seeing it ripped from the automaton’s frame piece by piece while Alexander screams in agony? How can he explain that he is afraid that he will walk into Washington’s headquarters to find Alexander unconscious once again, without giving anyone reason to doubt Hamilton’s abilities and without ruining the hard-earned trust he's won from his friend?

“It is Alexander, _non_?” Lafayette rightly guesses. “You dream of him dying.”

“Of being torn apart by a mob of soldiers.” John doesn’t think the memory of that nightmare will ever leave him. “I close my eyes and I see his body, and I wake up and hear soldiers talking about wanting to kill him and I know they are only half-joking but still I cannot…” He takes a deep breath, composing himself as quickly as he can. “My apologies, Lafayette.”

“There is nothing to apologize for.” Lafayette hesitates for a moment, and then asks, “Have you spoken to Hamilton about these nightmares?”

“No.” How could he even begin such a conversation?

“Perhaps talking about it to him would help…” Lafayette tries to suggest, but John cuts him off quickly.

“No, it would not,” he says. “Alexander doesn’t… He wouldn’t…” John sighs in frustration, trying to find the words to explain what he means without saying more than he should.

“I do not believe Alexander takes threats against his life seriously,” he finally says slowly. “I do not know if that is because such threats have been leveled against him for his entire existence, or if he does not truly think he is alive in the first place, but when he talks about himself it’s… He does not view himself as you and I view ourselves.”

“Of course not,” Lafayette says, with no small amount of confusion. “He is an automaton. We are human.”

John sighs, and shakes his head. How can he explain the look that Hamilton had on his face when he was studying the gears in his hand, as if he was looking at a particularly fascinating artifact rather than a piece of himself? How can he describe the way Alexander so easily brushed aside his own near-death, as if he barely registered his own mortality?

John knows what it’s like to be reckless with his own life, to not care if he survives a battle or not. But Alexander does not act like he is indifferent to whether he lives or dies- he acts like he doesn’t realize that life is truly an option for him at all. And that thought almost scares John more than the nightmares themselves.

When John doesn’t answer for several long moments, Lafayette sighs and says, “I do not know what is going on here, but if you are concerned about Hamilton you must speak with him. We may be friends in our own right, but he trusts no one the way he trusts you.”

John knows that- it’s been a source of amusement amongst their small group of friends on more than one occasion- but on this morning the weight of that sits heavy in his stomach. He thinks of the sheer amount of work that he already puts into subtly taking care of Hamilton when the automaton doesn’t take care of himself and feels exhausted; he thinks about what would happen if he didn’t do that, of Alexander dying at that damned desk, of any of the horrific scenes from his dreams, and knows he cannot stop.

But none of this gives him any insight into a possible solution, and he simply does not know what to do anymore.

He sticks his hands in his pockets before Lafayette can see them shake, curling his fingers around the bottle of Hamilton’s whale oil and gripping it tightly. “I will speak to him,” John says.

He does not know if it’s a lie, doesn’t know if he will be able to find the words or the strength to confront Alexander. But it placates Lafayette, who smiles easily at him, and that is enough for now.

John does not think about the dreams he’s had where a stray bullet destroys that smile forever, as he bids his friend farewell. He does not think about how this delay means Hamilton may not be at work in Washington’s headquarters any longer, and he certainly does not let himself wonder when precisely he will next see the automaton.

Because he knows that he will seek out Alexander at work in the late hours of the night for the rest of his life, if it means he can be assured that his friend is still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical!Laurens was a lot more reckless and hot-headed than musical!Laurens is shown to be. I tried to strike a balance between the two, and I hope it somewhat worked. 
> 
> The last chapter will be posted on Saturday!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for brief mentions of suicidal tendencies. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's read, commented, and left kudos! You guys are the best!

“Damn,” Alexander curses as his hand spasms suddenly, causing him to draw a harsh line across the missive that he was writing. His hand was still healing from his recent cut, his movements a little uncertain as the still-open wound exposed sensitive gears and cogs, everything made worse by his own low energy reserves that he is still steadfastly ignoring. He was only working on a rough draft of the report that was being sent to Congress, riddled with short-hand abbreviations and annotations in the margins, but if Alexander’s movements are becoming this jerky he won’t be able to transcribe the final report tonight like he had planned.

No matter. The report isn’t due for several days yet, and he can just as easily finish it up on the morrow. There are other drafts that need to be written that he can start on in the meantime, and work done by the other aides that Washington asked him to read over before it is sent out. There are also calculations to be run to determine how long they can stretch their current supplies with new rationing measures, and to see if there is any money to be squeezed out of what Congress last sent so they can acquire more supplies themselves.

But his mind is stumbling over the figures, his hand shaking as he tries to write out the math on a scrap of paper. “Good Lord, pull yourself together,” he mutters to himself. He should be better than this- he needs to be better than this.

“Hamilton? What on Earth are you still doing here?”

Alexander is startled by the sudden voice, having not heard Laurens enter the headquarters. “I am simply finishing up the last of my work,” he answers.

He looks up at his friend, taking in Laurens’ bleary eyes and the rumpled shirt that he’s wearing under his uniform coat, which has clearly been haphazardly thrown on. “Did you wake up and come looking for me?” he asks, not sure whether to be amused or affronted by Laurens’ concern.

Laurens merely shrugs. “Even you need to rest sometime, my friend,” he says. “Here. I brought you your whale oil. I saw your movements earlier, I know you must be getting low again.”

He sets the bottle on the desk in front of Alexander, who eyes it with distaste and pushes it aside. “Thank you, but you needn’t have bothered,” he says. “I have more work to complete tonight and can’t afford to lose time to the inevitable lethargy that the oil brings on.”

“Alexander, you must rest,” Laurens urges him. “You have already put in more hours today than the rest of us, and you I know you haven’t fully recovered from nearly running yourself into the ground. Surely you must still be feeling the effects of that!”

“It is unimportant,” Alexander says stubbornly. “Washington relies on me. I must keep working. Go, return to the tent and to your own rest. I will be fine.”

“You will be all but useless to the General tomorrow if you don’t rest as well,” Laurens tells him bluntly. “And he will not be sympathetic to how many hours you put in tonight when you cannot complete your duties in the morning.”

Alexander scowls down at the page in front of him, littered with numbers and bits of equations that his mind can’t piece together in a way that makes sense. “I should be better than this,” he says quietly, bitterly.

Laurens sighs. “None of us can push ourselves past what we were created to do. Not even you, my dear Hamilton.” He squeezes Alexander’s shoulder gently. “Come back to the tent, my friend. Take your rest. The work will still be here in the morning.”

Alexander wants to keep protesting, but he knows it will be a futile effort. He growls in frustration, but sets down his pen and quickly straightens his papers before standing up. The smile on Laurens’ face doesn’t brighten Alexander’s mood, but it is enough to get him to give his friend a weak smile- more of a grimace, really- in return.

“Don’t forget the oil,” Laurens reminds him. Alexander scowls but grabs the bottle, twisting open the cap and taking a long draught of it. He doesn’t taste it, doesn’t register any sensation as it slowly slides into his abdomen, but he always thinks he can feel a spark of _something_ as it feeds the literal fire inside him.

It’s only for a very brief moment, before the almost-sensation disappears just as rapidly as it appeared. Alexander knows from experience that he has fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes, before he is rendered utterly useless- more useless than he already is, in this moment.

“I hate this,” he murmurs, leaning heavily on Laurens as he lets his friend lead him back to their tent. “If I cannot be truly human, at least let me exist without any limitations whatsoever. Do not taunt me with the illusion of humanity and only give me the dregs of that experience.”

“Good Lord, you should have stopped working several hours ago, before you became quite this maudlin,” Laurens mutters. “Come now, my friend. Let’s get you to bed.”

“I am being completely sincere,” Alexander snaps, even as he lets Laurens take the precious bottle of oil away from him and manhandle him into the tent, pushing him in the vague direction of his bedroll. Alexander begrudgingly lies down, wishing that he could smother himself with his blankets, take his leave of this cursed world and his even more cursed existence.

“I know you are,” Laurens says softly. “Just… go to sleep, Alexander. You will wake in a few hours and be able to work twice as hard as you were tonight.”

Alexander intends to give another harsh retort, another curse for this damnable weakness that has fallen upon him, but the words come out as a too-soft murmur, lost to the blankets pressed against his face. The damn lethargy from the oil has set in, and soon he will be lost in a dreamless unconsciousness for several hours- hours that he cannot afford to lose and yet now it is too late to try to reclaim them.

If Laurens even hears his quiet attempt at speech, he does not call attention to it. Or at least, Alexander is past the point of hearing if his friend says anything further.

It takes several hours for the effects of the oil pass and for Alexander to “wake up”, for lack of any better or more accurate term for the sudden transition that occurs back to his normal state of consciousness. Laurens is still asleep, curled up tightly in an attempt to save as much body heat as possible. Alexander carefully drapes his blanket over his friend’s still form, and slips quietly from the tent.

It’s not even dawn yet, just the barest hint of light beginning to show in the eastern sky. The camp is dark and silent, most of his fellow soldiers still fast asleep in their tents; Alexander only passes a handful of men coming back from the latrine or keeping watch as he makes his way across the camp to Washington’s headquarters.

Still, despite the lack of activity in the rest of the camp, Hamilton is not at all surprised to enter the headquarters tent to find the General already awake and at work. It is the nature of being in command to work long hours, and often Alexander only knows that the General retires for the night because he himself is the sole person to work longer than him.

“I am glad to see you took the opportunity to rest last night. I will need you by my side during today’s inspection, and there are several missives that I need you to personally deliver to some of the Generals after that is completed, provided I do not see them today myself,” Washington says by way of a greeting. “How much progress did you make on that response to Congress?”

Alexander eyes the mess he left on the desk the night before, the untidy stack of papers filled with too many pages that are all but useless due to his errors. “It is not yet completed, Sir,” he admits, with no small amount of shame. “But I shall finish it now.”

Washington nods, his head already bent back over his own work. “We still have several hours before we must begin the inspection of camp. I trust that will be enough time?”

It’s something he would say to any of the aides, a request for confirmation that the work will be completed so that the General does not have to worry himself with it. But it grates at Alexander nonetheless, makes him feel like perhaps Washington does not trust him to complete something as simple as a letter to Congress in a timely manner. And with that thought comes the irrational fear that perhaps Washington is beginning to see him as less useful than he initially thought. He tells himself that the General is simply treating him like any other aide- like any other _human_ \- and that his position is not in jeopardy, and he can almost believe it.

Still, he indicates none of this to the General himself, instead replying with a neutral, “Of course, Sir,” and immediately setting to work on the letter.

He misses the presence of Laurens while he works, not only for the absence of a suitable sounding board but he also simply misses the company of his friend. Still, he cannot deny that there is a part of Alexander that is grateful that he does not have to face Laurens after his disgraceful behavior the night before. Laurens will no doubt wish to talk about it, as Alexander suspects that his friend has been trying to talk to him for quite some time. Alexander’s plan is to tactfully ignore that anything ever happened, as he has been doing since Laurens found him collapsed at this very desk, but he fears that he will not be able to ignore any planned conversations for much longer.

Laurens is just heading to Washington’s headquarters to begin his work for the day as Washington and Alexander leave to begin inspection of the camp several hours later, and Alexander makes the mistake of catching his friend’s eye from across the camp. He sees Laurens prepare to call out a greeting and quickly turns away, busying himself with double-checking that he has a suitable supply of paper and ink for his day’s work.

He tells himself that it’s better this way, that perhaps this will convince Laurens to give up his attempts to talk about what happened, but deep down, Alexander knows that that is little more than wishful thinking.

When he passes by Laurens as he begins to follow Washington, he does not look up to see the hurt on his friend’s face.

XXXXX

Alexander hears the quiet footsteps long before their owner arrives, recognizes the familiar tread as easily as he would recognize his own face in the mirror. He hopes that Laurens will make a quip about his ability to work in near-complete darkness, or else chide him for hiding on the edge of camp with no one nearby for company or protection. But he cannot say that he is at all surprised when instead his friend’s first words are, “You have been avoiding me today.”

“I have been working,” Alexander responds, motioning to the travel desk that he has perched on his lap.

“A task which is often completed the General’s headquarters or our own tent, where there is light and you do not have to sit in the dirt at the base of a tree,” Laurens points out. “A position which is no doubt far less comfortable than you would have me believe it to be.”

“Physical comfort is of no concern to me, and this location offered far fewer distractions than either of the places you suggested,” Alexander says, already turning back to his work.

“Fewer distractions than even our tent, with only myself for company?”

Alexander's pen scratches to a sudden halt on the page, causing a jagged smear of ink that's far too similar to his mistakes from the night before for his liking. "The rest of the camp was too noisy and was proving to be too much of a distraction tonight," he lies, but the words come a moment too late to be anything close to believable.

"That still does not explain why you have been avoiding me at every possible turn since I sought you out last night, and indeed why you have been distant ever since I found you collapsed at your work," Laurens says. "Hamilton- Alexander... If I did something to upset or offend you..."

Alexander automatically responds with, "You didn't," but he's not sure how believable his words are.

Laurens sighs and sits down next to Alexander on the cold ground. Alexander knows that if he were to look over at his friend, even in the darkness he would be able to see the exhaustion and confused hurt on his face. So Alexander does not look at him, instead keeping his gaze fixed on his papers even though he is no long writing.

They sit in silence from several long minutes, only the distant sounds of camp disturbing the night's peace.

"In the all the time I have known you," Laurens finally says. "I have not been able to figure out if you wish that you were more human, or simply a better automaton."

Alexander clenches his hand around the edge of his travel desk. His fingers come dangerously close to gouging into the wood itself.

When it becomes clear that Laurens is not going to expand on that statement, Alexander forces himself to respond. "Sometimes, my dear Laurens, I am not sure myself."

He hears Laurens exhale shakily and, fearing that his moment of honesty may have made the situation worse, he is quick to elaborate. "Were it in my power to become fully human, I would of course do so without hesitation. But that will never be a possibility for me. Even if my impossible dream of commanding a battalion were to come true, and I am able to rise above my station after the war, nothing can change my position as an automaton. I will always be trapped by the reality of my creation- so why, therefore, should I not strive to be the best automaton that I am capable of being?"

"Even if you destroy yourself in the process?" Laurens challenges.

There is no response that Alexander can give that would be both honest and please his friend, and so he says nothing.

Laurens sighs again and pulls his legs up, curling in slightly as he rests his arms on top of his knees. "Do you dream, Hamilton?" he asks, startling Alexander with the abrupt change of conversation. "Not like wishing and hoping for something, but after you consume the whale oil do you ever have dreams like humans do when we sleep?"

"No," Alexander admits. "It does not work like that. I simply... stop being aware of my surroundings, until my body recovers and begins to fully function again."

"I'm afraid you are not missing out on much," Laurens says. "It is a singularly bizarre experience, one that feels real at the time but then often you cannot remember the details later. Most dreams are fantastical in nature, showing you scenes that are wholly impossible to experience in your waking life. But the nightmares... Somehow, the nightmares have a way of haunting you for days afterwards."

Laurens shudders and hunches over even further. "I have nightmares about you," he admits softly.

Alexander goes very, very still, not daring to breathe or make any move for fear of Laurens not explaining himself further.

"I know that you are more than capable of taking care of yourself, but still I dream of some irreparable harm befalling you. I dream of working by your side in Washington's headquarters, only to have your body simply cease to function next to me and this time I am unable to do anything to help you. I dream of waking up in the morning and finding a pile of broken cogs and springs outside the tent, the only remains you will leave behind."

"If that were the case, you would simply have to find a suitable clockmaker to put me back together," Alexander tries to joke.

"Damnit, Hamilton!" Laurens snaps. Alexander all but jumps at the anger in his tone. "I know you enjoy belittling your existence by comparing yourself to a well-made clock, but I will not sit here and listen to this tonight! I _cannot_ continue fighting in this war by myself, do you understand me?"

"Anyone with a basic understanding of mechanics can repair my body-"

"But they cannot fix _you!_ " Laurens shouts. " _You_ , Alexander, that spark that gives you a conscience and free thought. Perhaps anyone can fix your body but there is no clockmaker in the world who can restore _you_ to that body! There would be a mindless machine sitting at that damned desk in Washington's headquarters, and I would have an empty tent to myself, and I cannot-"

He cuts himself so suddenly and forcefully that Alexander can actually hear his teeth click together. Laurens breathing is heavy and ragged, and Alexander finds himself staring at him in silent shock, completely at a loss for words. He had no idea that Laurens worried so deeply about him, and he has no idea what to do with this information.

"I accepted long before I joined the Revolution the risk of losing friends to battle or the frequent diseases found in camp," Laurens says after several long minutes of silence. All traces of anger have left his voice, leaving him just sounding more exhausted than Alexander has ever heard him.

"Even if you cannot be felled by an illness, I knew and accepted that I could lose you to a stray bullet on the battlefield as well," Laurens says. "I even recognized in you the same tendency towards self-destruction that I myself have so often been accused of, and I came to terms with it long ago. But I realize now just how much I have underestimated its reach."

"Laurens..."

"You do not take care of your basic needs, Hamilton," Laurens continues, as if Alexander had never tried to speak up. "You do not need as much rest as us humans, so you assume that you do not need any at all. You do not need to eat food, so you pretend that you need to consume regular doses of your whale oil. You spend so long at your work that you rarely interact with the other soldiers, and you do not hear even half of what they say about you.

"And then I wake up late at night and you are not there, but your whale oil is still in the tent even though you are due for another dose, and I do not know if you are still at your endless writing or if the men have finally carried out one of their numerous threats. And if you are still in Washington's headquarters, I do not know if you will have finally depleted your body's reserves of oil and if it would even be possible to revive you should that occur. I could barely bring you back last time, Alexander. I don’t know if I could do it again."

"I did not know," Alexander manages to stammer out. "I- I did not know. Laurens, I am truly sorry..." He lets his voice trail off because he truthfully does not know what to say in this situation. How does one apologize to a friend for upsetting them, when an apology alone does not feel like nearly enough?

Laurens was honest with him, even when it was clear that it was difficult for him to continue speaking. The least Alexander can do is respond in kind.

"I have learned, from my very first days, that the only way I can be guaranteed of my freedom is to continually prove that the volume of work I can complete is such that it is impractical for me to be under constant human supervision," Alexander says quietly. He cannot bring himself to look at Laurens as he speaks, and he keeps his gaze forward, looking out over the faint silhouettes of the tents of camp in front of them.

"If I was working at all hours of the day, seemingly without break, eventually my employers would stop keeping close watch on me. I could move about town as I pleased, I could read what I wanted, write what I wanted, without being subjected to such intense scrutiny- can you imagine it, Laurens? Knowing that the people around you are so fearful of you that they would go to such great lengths to keep tabs on your every action, to the point where the only solution is the antithesis of all logic- to embrace everything that makes you different, highlight it to such an extreme that everyone is forced to see it with such clarity that they cannot help but admit that there is no danger inherent in your differences?"

"No," Laurens says softly. "No, I cannot imagine such an existence."

"Humans fear my humanity, fear what it may mean if artificial creations like myself can be said to be truly alive, and so they want me to be as mechanical as possible. Still with emotions so I am approachable and pleasant to deal with, but so utterly perfect in everything that I do that they can comfortably place myself and my actions in a category completely separate from them."

Alexander closes his eyes, forces back the emotions that threaten to overwhelm him. Memories of life on Nevis surface in his mind, of overhearing people talk fearfully about how _human_ he was, of hearing his employer talk about terminating Alexander's very existence if he showed any indication of being too unpredictable, as easily as he might talk about terminating a person's employment.

"You are the first person that I have truly let myself show these vulnerabilities to," he says hoarsely. "There are others I have come to trust- Washington and Lafayette, namely- but they only know of my need for the whale oil so I can ensure that I always have a supply. To live with the knowledge that one of them, rather than you saved my life… or to let them see me as you saw me last night... I could never. Even if I wished to let my guard down to such an extent, _I cannot._ I do not know how to so irrevocably lower my defenses."

"Except around me," Laurens points out, a quiet observation that still manages to pierce Alexander to the core.

He exhales shakily and forces himself to open his eyes, to look at his friend. There is pity in Laurens' eyes, but more importantly there is something akin to understanding, the realization of Alexander's motives that he did not know he was hoping for until he sees it.

"You are the closest friend I have, John," he says, with the utmost sincerity. "If there was anyone I would trust myself to show weaknesses in front of, it would be you."

"I do not consider those things to be weaknesses," Laurens tells him. "I never have."

"I know," Alexander responds. "And perhaps that is why I am comfortable showing them to you."

He pauses for a moment and glances back down at the half-finished letter he had been writing earlier. The smear of ink has ruined his work and it will have to be rewritten, but he finds himself less irked by this than he was earlier. "I am sorry for avoiding you today, and for being distant this past week" he adds, slightly softer than before. "I suppose I simply wished to avoid having to discuss my recent behavior. I truly did not intend to make you worry so."

“It is quite alright,” Laurens says, as sincere in his words as Alexander has been. “Just… promise me that you will take better care of yourself?”

Alexander hesitates, weighing his options and his words for perhaps a moment longer than he should have, judging by the look of worry on Laurens’ face. But he finally nods and says, “Alright. I cannot promise that I will be successful but… yes. I will try.”

He will try, for Laurens’ sake. He will take better care of himself so his friend does not have to wake up in the middle of the night to seek him out, or spend an hour fearfully waiting for him to regain consciousness after collapsing at his work. He will try to remember to take his whale oil, to take breaks when John urges him to, to keep his body functioning as properly as he can with his limited knowledge of his own creation.

Such attention to his own care is foreign to Alexander, who is more used to harsh orders to stay at work rather than gentle reminders to relax for a moment. But truthfully, the knowledge of how deep Laurens’ worry for him runs sits ill with the automaton; his friend should be more concerned about himself, about those friends who are truly alive and have more to lose than he does.

But he will never say as much aloud. If taking care of himself is what it takes for Laurens to worry less, then Alexander is willing to try his best to keep himself functioning. If only for John’s sake.

**Author's Note:**

>  ****Spoilers and Warnings****  
>  Alexander gets a cut on his hand, which reveals the gears and mechanics underneath. He very casually mentions that his skin is partially self-regenerating, and is formed of thin layers of overlapping pigskin that he can lift up in small sections to access some internal mechanisms. He is very matter-of-fact about this; Laurens is a little horrified and grossed out. 
> 
> This first chapter is the only one with detailed descriptions of this, though Laurens will have nightmares about this (and other things) in the next chapter.
> 
>  **Other General Notes**  
>  I really debated whether I wanted to write Alexander being made like this, but in the end it makes the most sense to me. If Alexander's skin was made from one piece of pigskin stretched over a metal frame, it would probably be distorted and warped to some degree and he would look less human-like than I wanted him to. The other alternative would be to give him large sections of stitches across his body, but I wanted to avoid that Frankenstein's Monster look as well. 
> 
> So I went with this. Thin layers of pigskin, overlapping and glued down with a substance that 1) allows for minute regeneration and 2) prevents decay so Alexander isn't covered with pieces of rotting skin. This also has the advantage of giving him limited access to his inner workings- enough to, as he says, lubricate a squeaky joint but not enough to repair extensive internal damage. He still doesn't know *how* he works though. Beyond oiling the outermost layer of gears, there's little he can do to actually repair his body should something start to fail.


End file.
